Like the sorcerer of old, the television set casts its magic spell, freezing speech and action, turning the living into silent statues so long as the enchantment lasts. The primary danger of the television screen lies not so much in the behavior it produces - although there is danger there - as in the behavior it prevents: The talks, the games, the family festivals, and the arguments through which much of the child's learning takes place and through which his character is formed. Turning on the television set can turn off the process that transforms children into people. - Urie Bronfenbrenner

In this digitized world, do we want to raise a generation of children who are either bored or anxious if they're not in front of a screen? - Dr. Susan Linn

"Many parents want to curb their children's TV time, but aren't sure how to go about it, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP). The AAP researchers offered these suggestions:" - Life123

"The Japan Pediatric Association, for one, is warning parents about the potential adverse effects of relying on smartphones, tablets, and other mobile devices to serve as “babysitters.” “When children become upset, many parents give them a smartphone to keep them quiet,” the association’s executive director, Hiromi Utsumi, told The Japan News last week." - Associations Now (Nov 2013)

"Limit the amount of total entertainment screen time to <1 to 2 hours per day. Discourage screen media exposure for children <2 years of age. Keep the TV set and Internetconnected electronic devices out

Note, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommends "Pediatricians should urge parents to avoid television viewing for children under the age of 2 years. Although certain televisionprograms may be promoted to this age group, research on earlybrain development shows that babies and toddlers have a criticalneed for direct interactions with parents and other significantcare givers (eg, child care providers) for healthy brain growthand the development of appropriate social, emotional, and cognitiveskills. Therefore, exposing such young children to televisionprograms should be discouraged." - AAP Policy Statement (Aug 1999)

"Child care settings limiting screen time, including television, cell phone, or digital media, for preschoolers (aged two-five) to less than 30 minutes per day for children in half-day programs or less than one hour per day for those in full-day programs. Health care providers counseling parents and children’s caregivers to permit no more than a total of two hours per day of screen time, including television, cell phone, or digital media, for preschoolers, including time spent in child care settings and early childhood education programs." - Institute of Medicine of the National Academies (June 2011)

"Results: Performance varied according to experimental group and age. In particular, we found that children's orienting networks and error rates can be affected by a very short exposure to television. Conclusion: Just 3.5 min of watching television can have a differential effect on the viewer depending on the pacing of the film editing. These findings highlight the potential of experimentally manipulating television exposure in children and emphasize the need for more research in this previously under-explored topic." - Acta Pædiatrica (June 2009)

"Watching too much television can change the structure of a child's brain in a damaging way, according to a new study. Researchers found that the more time a child spent viewing TV, the more profound the brain alterations appeared to be. The Japanese study looked at 276 children aged between five and 18, who watched between zero and four hours TV per day, with the average being about two hours. MRI brain scans showed children who spent the most hours in front of the box had greater amounts of grey matter in regions around the frontopolar cortex - the area at the front of the frontal lobe. But this increased volume was a negative thing as it was linked with lower verbal intelligence, said the authors, from Tohoku University in the city of Sendai. They suggested grey matter could be compared to body weight and said these brain areas need to be pruned during childhood in order to operate efficiently. ‘These areas show developmental cortical thinning during development, and children with superior IQs show the most vigorous cortical thinning in this area,’ the team wrote." - Daily Mail (Jan 2014) and Washington Post (Dec 2013) and Cerebral Cortex (Nov 2013)

"Subsequent work by Malach and colleagues has found that, when we're engaged in intense "sensorimotor processing" - and nothing is more intense than staring at a massive screen with Dolby surround sound while wearing 3-D glasses - we actually inhibit these prefrontal areas. The scientists argue that such "inactivation" allows us to lose ourself in the movie" - Frontal Cortex (Jan 2010)

"There was greater frontal lobe activation in children when they were engaged in a picture book reading task with their mothers, as opposed to passive viewing of a videotape in which the story was read to them. Social and verbal engagement of the mother in reading picture books with her young child may mediate frontal brain activity in the child." - Pubmed (Oct 2009)

"The EEG studies similarly show less mental stimulation, as measured by alpha brain-wave production, during viewing than during reading." - Scientific American (Feb 2002)

Learning Language

One of the most important skills that very young children learn is how to understand and speak their family language.

It turns out that the more a parent and/or caregivers speaks to a child, the greater the chance that that child will have a better vocabulary and other language skills by age 3. And that the child's vocabulary and other language skills at age 3, were predictive of his or her vocabulary and other language skills by age 9-10.

"In this groundbreaking study, Betty Hart and Todd Risley entered the homes of 42 families from various socio-economic backgrounds to assess the ways in which daily exchanges between a parent and child shape language and vocabulary development. Their findings were unprecedented, with extraordinary disparities between the sheer number of words spoken as well as the types of messages conveyed. After four years these differences in parent-child interactions produced significant discrepancies in not only children’s knowledge, but also their skills and experiences with children from high-income families being exposed to 30 million more words than children from families on welfare. Follow-up studies showed that these differences in language and interaction experiences have lasting effects on a child’s performance later in life." - Rice University Center for Education (2012) and Commercial Appeal (Dec 2008) and Evidence Based Mommy (June 2010) and University of Oregon

"From our preschool data we had been confident that the rate of vocabulary growth would predict later performance in school; we saw that it did. For the 29 children observed when they were 1-2 years old, the rate of vocabulary growth at age 3 was strongly associated with scores at age 9-10 on both the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-Revised (PPVT-R) of receptive vocabulary (r = .58) and the Test of Language Development-2: Intermediate (TOLD) (r = .74) and its subtests (listening, speaking, semantics, syntax)." - American Educator (Spring 2003)

Do Young Children Learn Language From Television?

"When additional tests were conducted after six weeks, there was no evidence children learned the words specifically highlighted in the DVDs, and watching the DVDs was unrelated to measures of general language learning. However, children whose parents reported that they began watching infant DVDs at an early age scored lower on a test of vocabulary knowledge." - Science Daily (March 2010)

"American infants and toddlers watch TV an average of two hours a day, and much of the programming is billed as educational. A new study finds that children under age 3 learn less from these videos that we might think—unless there's an adult present to interact with them and support their learning." - Science Daily (Sept 2009)

"The results of this study have important implications for language acquisition. It indicates exposure to language via television is insufficient for teaching language to very young children. To learn new words, children must be actively engaged in the process with responsive language teachers." - Science Daily (July 2007)

"Troseth’s team think this ‘video deficit’ is caused by the fact young children quickly learn to distinguish between video and reality, predisposing them to ignore information presented by someone on TV." - BPS Research (May 2006)

More TV = Less Talking With Young Children = Language Delay

"For every hour in front of the TV, parents spoke 770 fewer words to children, according to a study of 329 children, ages 2 months to 4 years, in the June issue of Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine. Adults usually speak about 941 words an hour... Parents may not realize how little they interact with children when a TV is on, Christakis says. A mother may think she's engaged with a baby because they're both on the floor playing blocks. But if a TV is on in the background, the two of them talk much less, he says." - USA Today (June 2009) and MedPage Today (June 2009)

"We've known that television exposure during infancy is associated with language delays and attentional problems, but so far it has remained unclear why," said Christakis. "This study is the first to demonstrate that when the television is on, there is reduced speech in the home. Infants vocalize less and their caregivers also speak to them more infrequently." - Science Daily (June 2009) Via Unplug Your Kids

"Even infants zone out in front of the television, and it turns out this translates into less time interacting with parents and possible lags in language development, a new study finds." - Live Science (June 2009)

"This study compared the amount and style of maternal communication with toddlers and preschoolers while mother–child pairs watched TV, read books, and played with toys. We found that mother–child communication was less frequent and less verbally responsive when dyads viewed TV compared with when they read books, and in many cases, when they played with toys. In addition, some forms of maternal responsiveness were positively associated with indicators of youngsters' emergent literacy. Mothers' use of directive language was negatively related to emergent literacy. These findings suggest that TV co-viewing produces a relatively detrimental communication environment for young children, while shared book reading encourages effective mother–child exchanges." - Wiley (Sept 2011) and Psychology Today (Oct 2011)

More TV = Language Delay

"Analyses of the recordings revealed that each hour of additional television exposure was linked with a decrease of 770 words (7 percent) the child heard from an adult during the recording session. Hours of television were also associated with a decrease in the number and length of child vocalizations and the back and forth between the child and an adult (called a conversational turn)." - Live Science (June 2009)

"The study, by Professor Dimitri Christakis from the Seattle Children’s Research Institute in America, looked at 78 studies published over the past 25 years... A 2008 study in Thailand, also published in Acta Paediatrica, found that if children under 12 months watched TV for more than two hours a day they were six times more likely to have delayed language skills." - Daily Express (Jan 2009) and Science Daily (Jan 2009) and E! Science News (Jan 2009)

"Watching TV programmes or DVDs aimed at infants can actually delay language development, according to a number of studies. For example, a 2008 Thai study published in Acta Paediatrica found that if children under 12 months watched TV for more than two hours a day they were six times more likely to have delayed language skills. Another study found that children who watched baby DVDs between seven and 16 months knew fewer words than children who did not." - Scientific Blogging (Jan 2009)

"The scientists found that for every hour per day spent watching baby DVDs and videos, infants understood an average of six to eight fewer words than infants who did not watch them." - Science Daily (Aug 2007) and Science Now (Aug 2007)

"Can the noise level inside your house actually make it harder for your baby to learn to talk? Researchers now say turning down the TV can actually help your child find their voice faster." - Ivanhoe (Sept 2005)

"Children under the age of three who are allowed to watch too much television have below-average reading abilities by the time they are six, a new study claims." - Telegraph (Nov 2005) and PubMed (July 2005)

More TV = Developmental Delay

"Looking at over 1,300 children in a longitudinal study researchers found those children who watched increased amounts of television when they were 29 months old, had "reduced jumping ability in second grade and bigger waist circumferences in fourth grade." Additionally, other research has shown increased television consumption is "associated with less engagement in classroom activities, less weekend exercise and a greater chance of being picked on by classmates in fourth grade." Aside from this, more TV also correlates with increased waist size." - Discovery News (July 2012)

"The control group continues watching their usual cartoon fare, many of them violent, like “Road Runner” or “Scooby Doo.” Families in the intervention group are counseled to watch a cartoon fare described as pro-social and educational like “Dora the Explorer” and as neither violent nor pro-social, like “Curious George.” They agree to adhere to this media diet for six months, with a follow-up after a year." - Psychology Today (July 2013) and Pediatrics (March 2013)

"Five year-olds who watch TV for three or more hours a day are increasingly likely to develop antisocial behaviours, such as fighting or stealing by the age of seven, indicates research published online in Archives of Disease in Childhood." - Science Daily (March 2013) and The Atlantic (March 2013)

"What your kids watch on TV can affect how well they sleep, a new study suggests.

"Three-year-old children who are exposed to more TV appear to be at an increased risk for exhibiting aggressive behavior, according to a report in the November issue of Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals." - Science Daily (Nov 2009)

"This article examines the play behavior of 70 preschool children and its relationship to television violence and regulatory status. Linear regression analysis showed that violent program content and poor self-regulation were independently and significantly associated with overall and physical aggression." - ECRP (2009)

"Conditioning attentional skills: examining the effects of the pace of television editing on children's attention"

"Methods: School children (aged 4–7 years) were randomly assigned to one of two groups. Each group was presented with either a fast- or slow-edit 3.5-min film of a narrator reading a children's story. Immediately following film presentation, both groups were presented with a continuous test of attention."

"Results: Performance varied according to experimental group and age. In particular, we found that children's orienting networks and error rates can be affected by a very short exposure to television."

"Conclusion: Just 3.5 min of watching television can have a differential effect on the viewer depending on the pacing of the film editing. These findings highlight the potential of experimentally manipulating television exposure in children and emphasize the need for more research in this previously under-explored topic." - Acta Pædiatrica (June 2009)

"The limitations of this study do not diminish the veracity ofthe positive, and potentially disturbing, association betweentelevision viewing and ADHD-related behaviors as assessed viaparent and teacher ratings. It is likely that many physicians,teachers, and other professionals who work with families ofyoung children encourage parents to seek activities other thantelevision viewing for their preschool children. However, thisrecommendation may have particular importance to parents ofchildren with behavioral difficulties because of their tendencyfor social isolation and their need for the development of socialskills."

"There are two effects of concern: First, this is an exceedingly important time in your son’s brain development. His brain will triple in volume in his first two years of life, creating billions of connections and getting rid of unnecessary ones. In order for his brain to develop in the best possible way, he needs to interact with other people, manipulate objects in his environment, and play in a way that lets him fully explore and solve problems in a creative. way. Electronic screens provide none of these experiences. Therefore, any time that he spends in front of a screen is valuable time that could be used for much richer brain-building activities—and in a 3 month old, who is likely sleeping for nearly 12 hours each day, any awake time is precious." - Ask the Mediatrician (Sept 2009)

"The effects of background TV on young children are more subtle, but profoundly important. Background TV disrupts children's play. In one study, 12- to 36-month-old kids who played with toys, while their parents were in the same room and watching adult-directed programs, played for a shorter period of time than when the TV was off. In addition, children used a less sophisticated form of play when background TV was present compared to when it was not. It seems that the TV program, even though it was mostly incomprehensible and probably boring to the children, was captivating enough to repeatedly attract the children's attention." - Psychology Today (Dec 2011)

"Now scientists in Ohio have compared mother-child communication while watching TV to reading books or playing with Toys to reveal the impact on children’s development. The results, published in Human Communication Research, show that watching TV can lead to less interaction between parents and children, with a detrimental impact on literacy and language skills." - Psypost (Sept 2011)

"A new study looks for the first time at the effect of background TV on interactions between parents and young children. Using an experimental design, researchers found that when a TV was on, both the quantity and quality of interactions between parents and children dropped. This study challenges the common assumption that background TV doesn't affect very young children if they don't look at the screen." - Science Daily (Sept 2009)

"Daily television viewing for two or more hours in early childhood can lead to behavioral problems and poor social skills, according to a study of children 2.5 to 5.5 years of age conducted by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health." - Science Daily (Oct 2007)

"It turns out that background television -- even simple background noise -- can affect young children more than we might think. According to a series of studies that have accumulated over the past decade, growing up in a noisy or "always on" TV environment may have negative consequences for speech development, playtime and parent-child interaction." - Washington Post (Oct 2007)

"The more television infants and toddlers watch, the more likely they are to have trouble paying attention and concentrating during their early school years, a study reports Monday." - USAToday (April 2004)

"We've known for a long time that chronic noise is having a devastating effect on academic performance of children in noisy homes and schools" - Education World (July 1997)

More TV = Less Creative Play

“The results also showed that for seven- to 12-year-olds, the more TV they watched, the less time they spent doing homework, and among kids of all ages — especially among those younger than five — more TV meant significantly less creative play.” - Med Page Today (Feb 2006)

"The Serious Need for Play - Free, imaginative play is crucial for normal social, emotional and cognitive development. It makes us better adjusted, smarter and less stressed" - Scientific American (Jan 2009)

"The effects of background TV on young children are more subtle, but profoundly important. Background TV disrupts children's play. In one study, 12- to 36-month-old kids who played with toys, while their parents were in the same room and watching adult-directed programs, played for a shorter period of time than when the TV was off. In addition, children used a less sophisticated form of play when background TV was present compared to when it was not. It seems that the TV program, even though it was mostly incomprehensible and probably boring to the children, was captivating enough to repeatedly attract the children's attention." - Psychology Today (Dec 2011)

"A new study looks for the first time at the effect of background TV on interactions between parents and young children. Using an experimental design, researchers found that when a TV was on, both the quantity and quality of interactions between parents and children dropped. This study challenges the common assumption that background TV doesn't affect very young children if they don't look at the screen." - Science Daily (Sept 2009)

"For every hour in front of the TV, parents spoke 770 fewer words to children, according to a study of 329 children, ages 2 months to 4 years, in the June issue of Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine. Adults usually speak about 941 words an hour... Parents may not realize how little they interact with children when a TV is on, Christakis says. A mother may think she's engaged with a baby because they're both on the floor playing blocks. But if a TV is on in the background, the two of them talk much less, he says." - USA Today (June 2009) and MedPage Today (June 2009)

"We've known that television exposure during infancy is associated with language delays and attentional problems, but so far it has remained unclear why," said Christakis. "This study is the first to demonstrate that when the television is on, there is reduced speech in the home. Infants vocalize less and their caregivers also speak to them more infrequently." - Science Daily (June 2009) Via Unplug Your Kids

"They found the average child aged 8 months to 8 years is exposed to nearly 4 hours of background television over a 24-hour period. Both younger children and African American children are exposed to more background television, at an average of 5.5 hours per day, and children from the poorest families were exposed to nearly 6 hours per day. Children in families who left the television on when no one was watching, and children who had TV sets in their bedrooms, were exposed to more background TV. The study establishes the pervasiveness of background TV in U.S. homes with children." - American Academy of Pediatrics (Oct 2012) and MedPage Today (Oct 2012) and Pediatrics (Oct 2012) and CBS News (Oct 2012)

"A new study has discovered that children in the United States are being exposed to nearly four hours of background television each day, HealthDay News and various other media outlets reported earlier this week. As part of the study, researchers surveyed more than 1,450 English-speaking households with children between the ages of eight months to eight years old. They then looked at various other demographic variables, including gender, ethnicity, race, age, and family income, and discovered that younger children and those of African-American heritage were exposed to the highest rate of background TV noise." - RedOrbit (April 2012) and WebMD (April 2012)

More TV = Less Sleep

"What your kids watch on TV can affect how well they sleep, a new study suggests.

"A growing body of research is finding that infants and children under the age of 3 who watch TV — even too much TV during the day — struggle with interrupted sleep and irregular bed and naptime schedules. A recent study found that children under age 3 who watch television are at higher risk of disturbed sleep. Other studies have looked at the effects of TV viewing on older children and teens, and also found a link between TV, poor sleep and later bedtimes." - Health Blog (Feb 2008) and ABC News (Feb 2008)

"The effect appeared to accumulate, because a failure to go to bed at a regular time at multiple time points in the first 7 years of life was associated with lower cognitive scores for both boys and girls, the researchers reported online in the Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health." - MedPage Today (July 2013)

More TV = More Weight

"In a study of more than 1,000 children between the ages of 36 months and 54 months, those who were awake and in a room where a television was on for more than two hours per day were significantly more likely to be overweight or obese, reported Julie C. Lumeng, M.D., of the University of Michigan here, and colleagues. " - Med Page Today (April 2006)

"A striking study says one in five 4-year-olds is overweight, lengthening the odds these youngsters will stay obese later in life and encounter a string of health problems." - San Francisco Chronicle (April 2009)

"Research shows that children under the age of eight are unable to critically comprehend televised advertising messages and are prone to accept advertiser messages as truthful, accurate and unbiased." - American Psychological Association (Feb 2004)

"A comparison group of children from Sweden, where advertising to children is not permitted, asked for significantly fewer items. It is argued that English children who watch more TV, and especially those who watch alone, may be socialised to become consumers from a very early age. " - International Journal of Behavioral Development (2002)

"Nine out of 10 children under the age of two watch television regularly, with some spending as much as 40 per cent of waking hours in front of the box, a study found. This is despite the lack of scientific research to demonstrate that watching TV is beneficial for toddlers, said the review, published in the child health journal Acta Paediatrica. The study, by Professor Dimitri Christakis from the Seattle Children’s Research Institute in America, looked at 78 studies published over the past 25 years." - Daily Express (Jan 2009) - More on this study - Science Daily (Jan 2009) - More on this study - E! Science News (Jan 2009) - More on this study - The Medical News (Jan 2009)

"Children under the age of two should be banned from watching television, according to guidelines prepared for the Australian government." - The Telegraph (Oct 2009)

"The public health implications of early television and video viewing are potentially large. There are both theoretical and empirical reasons to believe that the effects of media exposure on children's development are more likely to be adverse before the age of about 30 months than afterward," - Science Daily (May 2007)

Note, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommends "Pediatricians should urge parents to avoid television viewing for children under the age of 2 years. Although certain televisionprograms may be promoted to this age group, research on earlybrain development shows that babies and toddlers have a criticalneed for direct interactions with parents and other significantcare givers (eg, child care providers) for healthy brain growthand the development of appropriate social, emotional, and cognitiveskills. Therefore, exposing such young children to televisionprograms should be discouraged." - AAP Policy Statement (Aug 1999)

"The rate of child injury from falling televisions has increased by 95% over the past 22 years, researchers found." - MedPage Today (July 2013)

Marketing TV to Parents

"Parent alert: the Walt Disney Company is now offering refunds for all those “Baby Einstein” videos that did not make children into geniuses. They may have been a great electronic baby sitter, but the unusual refunds appear to be a tacit admission that they did not increase infant intellect." - The New York Times (Oct 2009)

"France's broadcast authority has banned French channels from marketing TV shows to children under 3 years old, to shield them from developmental risks it says television viewing poses at that age." - Otago Daily Times (Aug 2008)

"A Boston-based child advocacy group filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission yesterday charging the makers of the popular Baby Einstein and Brainy Baby videos with false and deceptive advertising." - Boston.com (May 2006)

"A total of 596 parents of children ages 3 to 5 years completed demographic questionnaires, reported on attitudes regarding media's risks and benefits to their children, and completed one-week media diaries in which they recorded all of the programs their children watched." - Science Daily (June 2013)

"Young children in the United States watch about 80 minutes of television per day, on average.

Depending on whether the programming is educational and age-appropriate, all that time in front of the tube can either help or harm their development, research suggests. But what happens in that 80 minutes may be only part of the story. According to a nationwide study, a much bigger proportion of kids' TV exposure comes indirectly, from television that's on in the background while they're doing other activities. The average child between the ages of 8 months and 8 years absorbs nearly four hours of this so-called background or "secondhand" TV each day, the study found. And this indirect exposure, by detracting from play, homework, and family time, may have possible consequences for kids' well-being." - CNN (Nov 2012) and Reuters (Oct 2012) and PubMed (Nov 2012)

"They found the average child aged 8 months to 8 years is exposed to nearly 4 hours of background television over a 24-hour period. Both younger children and African American children are exposed to more background television, at an average of 5.5 hours per day, and children from the poorest families were exposed to nearly 6 hours per day. Children in families who left the television on when no one was watching, and children who had TV sets in their bedrooms, were exposed to more background TV. The study establishes the pervasiveness of background TV in U.S. homes with children." - American Academy of Pediatrics (Oct 2012) and MedPage Today (Oct 2012) and Pediatrics (Oct 2012) and CBS News (Oct 2012)

"A new study has discovered that children in the United States are being exposed to nearly four hours of background television each day, HealthDay News and various other media outlets reported earlier this week. As part of the study, researchers surveyed more than 1,450 English-speaking households with children between the ages of eight months to eight years old. They then looked at various other demographic variables, including gender, ethnicity, race, age, and family income, and discovered that younger children and those of African-American heritage were exposed to the highest rate of background TV noise." - RedOrbit (April 2012) and WebMD (April 2012)

"As family income and education levels increase, time spent consuming media decreases, with the bulk of that decrease coming from less time spent watching TV, which wasn't the case in the 2005 study." - Ars Technica (Dec 2011)

"TV continues to dominate children’s media use.... In a typical day, 47% of babies and toddlers ages 0 through 1 watch TV or DVDs, and those who do watch spend an average of nearly two hours (1:54) doing so." - Common Sense Media (Oct 2011)

"Young kids are watching too much television, some averaging more than five hours a day, a new study suggests.

The findings include screen time at home and in different child care settings. And nearly 70 percent of the preschool-age children exceeded recommendations by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) for limiting screen exposure (including TV, DVDs, computers and video games) to one to two daily hours." - Live Science (Oct 2010) and Science Daily (Oct 2010) and CNet News (Nov 2010)

"They found that by three months of age, before infants are capable of sitting up unaided, about 40% regularly watched television, DVDs, or videos, and by 24 months of age, 90% of kids were habitually plugged in. The children were regularly exposed to visual media by a median age of nine months, and average daily viewing time increased from one hour daily at 12 months, to more than 1.5 hours by 24 months, the authors." - Med Page Today (May 2007)

"Approximately 40 percent of three-month old children and about 90 percent of children age 24 months and under regularly watch television, DVDs or videos, according to a report in the May issue of Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine." - Science Daily (May 2007)

" Couch potatoes are getting younger: Forty percent of infants are regular TV viewers by the time they are only 3-months old, before they can even sit up on their own, a new study finds. “Early television viewing has exploded in recent years and is one of the major public health concerns facing American children,” said lead author Frederick Zimmerman of the University of Washington. The trend increases in toddlers, his research shows. At 2 years old, 90 percent of children are parked in front of the tube watching TV shows, DVDs or videos for 10 to 20 hours a week, Zimmerman found in a survey of 1,000 Minnesota and Washington families with a child born in the previous two years." - Live Science (May 2007)

"Although parents believe in the educational value of TV, DVDs and videos, just 32 percent of parents always watched with their children. Parents also had an inflated idea of how much of these media other children were watching and believed that their children viewed less than the average amount. The study indicated that the perceived average viewing for other families is 73 percent higher than the actual average. "At the end of the day the amount of TV viewing is based on what parents think is normal," said Zimmerman. "Perceptions of norms tend to shape behavior even if those norms are inflated."" - The Medical News (May 2007)

Report finds pre-schoolers use media as much as play outside - CNN (Nov 2003)

"Young children, more used to watching television than talking, are to be encouraged to improve their communication skills." - BBC (Nov 2003)

"The study also found that single mothers and mothers with less education are more likely to have children whose TV viewing exceeds AAP guidelines. And, children who watch at least three hours of TV a day at age 2 are more than twice as likely as other children to watch at least three hours a day at age 6." - About.com

"“Children who spent more time watching educational programs increased their relational aggression toward other children over initial levels,” Gentile said. “This study shows that children can learn more than one lesson out of a given program. They can learn the educational lesson that was intended, but they’re also learning other things along the way.”

This unintended impact has to do with the portrayal of conflict in media and how preschool-age children comprehend that conflict. Gentile said TV and movie producers often incorporate an element of bad behavior in order to teach children a lesson at the end of the program. This type of conflict is also found in children’s literature. However, since children between the ages of 2 and 5 do not typically understand the plot of shows, Gentile said they do not know how the beginning of a story relates to the end.

“Even though educational shows like Arthur have pro-education and pro-social goals, conflict between characters is often depicted with characters being unkind to each other or using relational aggressive tactics with each other,” Gentile said. “Preschool children really don’t get the moral of the story because that requires that they understand how all the parts of the show fit together. You need pretty complicated cognitive skills and memory skills to be able to do that, which are still developing in young children.” - Iowa State University News (Feb 2013)